Lobster meets Mini cookoff ! 

 Today's matchup - Big Green Egg Mini,  vs the 2 Sammy's lobster tails

This morning Dee Dee, (sometimes know as "Wife-of-SmokinGuitarPlayer")  decided to take a 2 day trip to the the New Jersey seashore house for some R&R so this left me home alone to work in my office and have a little more fun playing with Big Green Eggs.

Some of you may remember that yesterday I had the "Chicken Meets Mini" slugfest ...well today ... 2 lobster tails from Sammy's exclusive shopping club. $ 28.00 later I'm ready to do the test  with a pair of frozen lobster tails.

Now outside my window, is the almost-virgin BGE Mini that was used yesterday for the now-infamous "Whole Chicken vs Mini" event ( over 200 of you viewed that story last night and this morning) and in my freezer are a couple of lobster tails that were originally bought for a special night... but instead ... time for another Mini challenge bout!

I'm going to try to use the "Dwell in the Shell" method.  Here's how it goes.......................

Firstly, thaw the tails ala Alton Browns suggested method, put in a bowl and let cold running water run into the bowl until thawed ..around 15 to 20 minutes.  (This works really good)

Crack each tail up the middle of the "top" of the tail/shell.

Remove membrane from the "inside" / underneath exposing the meat. rub some oil on the meat ..just a little bit.  (I used melted butter)

The next step is to squeeze lime juice in there ..I don't have limes so I'll use a little lemon squeezings they are almost the same anyway right?

Sprinkle on garlic powder and a little Lowery's seasoned salt.  I'm just going to use Bad Byron's Butt Rub instead.

Preheat cooker (the almost virgin Mini) to 400 to 450 ..that shouldn't be hard.

Place tails meat side down for 5 minutes (That seems like a LOT ...I'll be watching this very close)

Turn tails over, pour melted butter into each one and put back on upside down so they cook in their own juice and butter (the dwell part).

Close the lid and shut down the vents and let them in there for 5 minutes

This seems like a LOT of HOT cooking . I will watch them closely.

Time to get started .... prep the lobster tails.

First thing to note... when they thawed out ...the big one now looks bigger than it did when it was frozen ...the little one now looks littler than it did when it was frozen .... interesting.

Also ...the little one ... we'll call him "Little Guy" ... DOES NOT HAVE A HARD SHELL !! It's soft and leathery ...and there are remnants of a hard shell near the tale ..see the pics .... interesting ...

And.... the big one ...we'll call him "Big Guy" ..his shell is so freaking hard I can't split it like it says to do in the instructions so I'm skipping that part.

And again I'm using Bad Byron's Butt Rub because I have it handy from the Chicken event and it probably has most of that stuff in it anyway and I like it.

Mini Egg.... old lump staying in, some fresh Humphrey Charcoal on top ..more really big pieces ..try to pick out some smaller ones , insert Big Green Egg FS24 fire starter and away we goo,,,,,,, one thing about a mini that I am starting to realize ...the tiny bugger gets up to temp very fast ... 5 minutes and the smoke is clear and the temp is 400 degrees!!

After 5 to 10 minutes the Egg is at temp (450) ... oops ... the fire ring is still out from the chicken event ... insert fire ring , insert grate , tails go on face down and immediately catch on fire ... close the lid now.

After 5 minutes ....they are smellin good .... I opened the egg , removed both tails, turned on their "backs" and poured melted butter into on the bottoms ..then put back on the egg "face up" so they are like "cups" holding lobster meat and butter in them. Again, they immediately caught fire. Now I remember the "lotta bull" guy on TV last year won the lobster event with his lobsters and they were on fire when he cooked them so maybe this fire thing ain't so bad ....CLOSED the vents and let them "dwell in the shell" for 5 minutes.

At the 5 minute mark I pulled them .... fabulous ... .well "little guy" is fabulous ..."big guy" still isn't cooked fully ... so I put him back on and opened the vents and proceded to gobble up little guy and man was he good .... it took another 5 minutes or so to fully cook "big guy" and I had to cut him up the middle ... just kept putting on butter and catching him on fire ..the mini is great for this stuff ... .after maybe another 5 minutes BIG GUY was done, had the picture-taking session and then he was EATEN.

LET ME TELL YOU ....THIS WAS THE BEST LOBSTER TAILS I HAVE EVER EATEN BAR NONE.

INCLUDING RESTAURANTS ALL OVER THE WORLD AT ANY COST...THE BEST PERIOD.

So " Can you do great Lobster Tails on the Mini"

 Here are the pics chronicleing the event...

Here  are the contestants .... Lobster Tails from Sams club exclusive shopping club, Big Green Egg Mini Ceramic cooker, And their posse ... almost-virgin bag of Humphrey charcoal, Bad Byron's Butt Rub in leu of all the other seasonings. (Not shown butter and more butter)

Here's Little Guy ...the soft-shelled lobster.

Tails marinating in bag for a couple of minutes (it was supposed to be an hour but I was hungry)

Phase 2, turn over, more butter, more flames, close lid and shut vents for dwell.

Phase 3 the dwell ..temp coming down.

Here they are ....

If anybody ever tells you that this doesn't look succulent I want to have a talk with them.

This is SECONDS before Big Guy dissappeared. MAtch over. Lobsters are great on the Mini. I am really starting to like this little cooker more than I thought.